Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston. When I was his chairman at Imperial, the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, was also on the college council, and I do not think that she or I managed to catch up with him, so following him is quite easy—I am used to it.

I do not agree at all with the noble Lord’s strictures on the report; nor do I agree with the stronger strictures from the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. As I understand it, it is an agreed report with a supplementary alternative. To call the report disjointed is unfair but I think it is more unfair to criticise it for the defects of the Bill. The terms of reference to which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, worked—and we owe him and his committee a great deal of thanks—were to report on the Bill, not on Lords reform. Therefore, there are a number of matters that the committee has not touched on in detail because the Bill does not do so. In particular, it is a pity that indirect elections have not been more explored. Both the report and the alternative report make it clear that their authors believe that the issue should be explored further but it just does not happen to be in the Bill.

I also think it is a pity that the potential future role of the Lords as the cement of the United Kingdom is not discussed. My noble friend Lord Hennessy spoke of this as the grade one issue. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, also spoke of it, and I agree with both of them. I think that there is a very important role for the Lords. I suspect that we will have further devolution that will make the West Lothian question still more significant, and part of the answer may be found in this House.

I have been very polite about the report, but there is one point which is touched on only obliquely and briefly in one paragraph—paragraph 104. The noble Lords, Lord Cunningham of Felling and Lord Cormack, are quoted as talking about the difficulties that could arise if the non-elected Members were decisive in a vote on a constitutional issue. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to it today as a point that I have made. I have made the point and it is very nice of him to attribute it to me but in the report it is attributed to him.

I am very concerned about hybridity, which seems to me to mean instability—hybridity without a rationale. There is no rationale in the Government’s White Paper or in the Government’s Bill or in the Richard report. If democratic legitimacy is to be the determinant or the touchstone—I see the argument for that—then by definition the non-elected, the non-democratically legitimate are illegitimate.

The House was good enough to vote for a couple of amendments that I tabled on the EU Bill, but I found it very difficult to vote for them when they came back after they were rejected by the House of Commons. My difficulty would be greatly enhanced if I were in the small, unelected minority in an 80 per cent elected House of Lords. That would be a two-tier House. The Richard report talks about differential arrangements for remuneration and differential arrangements for disqualification procedures for the elected and non-elected Members. I think it is probably right but I am not talking about that; I am talking about something much more fundamental. If you think the Cross Benches are worth preserving, I do not think that you can preserve them in that way. It would be very difficult or disastrous to be a Cross-Bencher if your vote were decisive in an important question on which the two Houses came into conflict.

I also think that it is very odd to produce numbers with no rationale. Why is it 80:20? Why is it not 75:25? There has to be a basis for the figures. If you are writing a constitutional settlement, it has to be capable of being taught in schools; you have to know why the figures are 80:20. It is not enough to say,

“it delivers a little democracy—but not too much”,

in the words of the alternative report. You have to know why those are the right numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, is a scientist and there must be some scientific rule that explains why the figures are 80:20. I think this is a fudge and I think that fudges come unstuck. Hybridity means instability. Constitutional settlements should be premised on stability.

[Lord Tyler]

Perhaps I can help the noble Lord with a little bit of information. The two options of 80:20 or 100 per cent have been placed before Parliament because that is what the House of Commons voted for. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for introducing such an interesting contribution at a quarter to midnight. The reason why it is a fudge is because the House of Commons voted for a fudge.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

That is fine, but in 15 years’ time how will you explain that in schools? You cannot have a fudge; you have to have a rule, a principle, a rationale, otherwise it will be unstable. When it starts to go wrong, when there is a showdown between the two Houses and the independents, and the unelected have played some role in that, the numbers will get changed. People will decide on a different number.

When we voted on possible compositions, I voted for an all-elected Chamber or an all-nominated Chamber. I could not vote for any of the numerical compromises. If we go for a compromise, we ought to look either in the area to which the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, was pointing us or in the area to which the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, was pointing us: the area of indirect election. There are good arguments for indirect election and by choosing indirect election constituencies or interest groups, you could achieve possibly the degree of expertise that you are looking for, which you were kind enough to say that you get at present at least partly from the Cross Benches.